Achilles

by Greg Boose

  Vespa opened her arms. “Are you insane? Look around, asshole! Take your pick! How many problems do you or I possibly need?”

  “Well, now you have one less problem.” Hopper patted the backpack. “If Thetis starts looking for the tank that was on that truss, well, they’ll find you and me and everyone here on this beach. Bingo bango.”

  “They’ll find all of us,” Vespa said. “Everyone back at the wreckage, too. Plus, any adults we can find.” After a deep breath, she turned to the rest of her camp and asked, “Anybody have anything else on them we should all know about? Anyone have a tiny spacecraft in their back pocket? Maybe a portable wormhole that opens up right on Thetis? Because that would be helpful right about now.”

  Nobody answered. And then they started to sleep.

  Now in the gray morning, on his third wind, Jonah drops a long red sapling a dozen feet from the fire. Brian and Michael drag it to Rosa, who works vines strategically around the wood, connecting it to the others. Jonah turns and looks up the beach, hoping to see the cycle’s square headlight, hoping to hear from Malix and Sean that they don’t need to be building these two rafts because they’ve found a way around the body of water. The rafts are supposed to be a distant Plan B.

  The demics work much faster than Jonah anticipates. They argue over calculations and weight requirements, wind and the length of the paddles to be cut. Richter and Aussie direct Portis to cut the wood into even lengths with his rifle. After each raft has thirty-five pieces across, Michael requests two thicker logs to be attached underneath as crossbeams. Daybreak is almost upon them as eight oars are carved to Richter’s demands.

  Jonah, sore and with nothing more to do, sits with his feet in the water and waits for sunrise.

  A square white light appears up the beach, cupping the tide line, and Jonah rises, clenching two handfuls of silver sand. Here we go, he thinks. Vespa is the first to reach Malix and Sean, just out of earshot of Jonah. Her shoulders slump, and she looks west out over the water. He releases the sand from his hands.

  “So?” Jonah asks, approaching with Hopper, Portis, and Rosa. The first hints of white and purple appear overhead. The sun is about to rise.

  “So, nothing,” Malix says. He looks disheveled and shaky. He kills the engine and slides off the seat. “The beach just keeps going and going and going. But when we got about a mile up, there were some, um—”

  Sean interrupts: “There were some ugly zombie dog things that chased us around for a while. Really vicious bastards. But then the beach just keeps going and going in the same direction.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Vespa says, sighing.

  “How are the rafts coming along?” Sean asks.

  “They’re done,” Rosa says. “But it’s suicide to just start rowing into nothingness.”

  Jonah watches Malix dig at his fingernails. Something’s wrong. Something he’s not telling the rest of them. He’s about to ask the cadet what else they saw when Hopper sticks his head into the huddle. “But it’s not nothingness, ya freaks. Look west. Our soldier boy Jonah was right. There is something out there.”

  They turn to see a piece of land straight ahead—no more than a mile wide—illuminated by the rising sun.

  Jonah exhales. “I knew it. Thank you.”

  “Thank the gods,” Vespa whispers.

  “But shit, what is it? An island?” Portis asks.

  “Maybe,” Hopper says. “That, or the tip of a peninsula.”

  Vespa’s eyes go wide. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

  “That would mean our luck was changing,” Hopper says.

  The kids pull the two rafts to the water’s edge, and Christina drops the eight oars in a clanging pile. Vespa swings a leg over the cycle’s back and pushes it toward a raft with her toes.

  “Wait. Whoa. Hold on,” Michael says. “How much does that thing weigh?”

  “I don’t know,” Vespa says. “But not much on Achilles with this kind of gravity. I’d say—”

  “By the looks of it, I’d say it weighs about a thousand pounds, maybe less, on Earth. Which means it’s probably about three hundred and thirty-four pounds here. Rounding up, of course,” Brian says.

  “Of course,” Portis mumbles, gnawing on his shoulder.

  “Shut up,” Brooklyn says. She grabs her stomach and looks like she’s going to be sick, and then she stumbles away. Concerned, Jonah follows her, but she waves him off and takes some deep breaths. Then she furiously scratches her head.

  “It’s still too heavy to put on the rafts,” Michael says. “Plus, we wouldn’t be able to move it around if we need to distribute our weight to keep from tipping.”

  Vespa laughs. “Well, too bad, because we can’t leave it behind. It’s much too valuable. So somebody help me get this on board one of these things.”

  “Michael’s right,” Brian says. “The rafts are specifically designed to get just the fifteen of us across the water. We put that cycle on one of these, and it’s going to throw it off. We encounter any kind of waves, it’ll either sink us or crush someone. You have to listen to us. We know what we’re talking about.”

  Ruth snorts indignantly and chuckles.

  “We’re serious,” Michael says.

  “I’m with Vespa on this,” Jonah says. “That cycle is way too important to just throw away.”

  “Maybe we build another raft and tether it behind, then. We’ll tie it down,” Vespa says. “I’m sure you demics can whip that up in a couple of minutes. I’ll help. We’ll all help. It’ll be easy.”

  “Sure,” Brian says. “That, we can do. Okay. Fine. We’ll need roughly sixteen trunks to start with and then…”

  Sean rubs his chin. “Or maybe what we do is have some of us stay here and take the cycle in the other direction, down the beach this time. And if it’s a dead end, we make another raft and catch up with you.”

  “Hell no,” Brooklyn says. She looks green in the face. “Are you kidding? No splitting up. No way.”

  “Of course not,” Vespa agrees.

  “You okay?” Jonah whispers to Brooklyn.

  She stands up straight and forces a smile. “Yeah, yeah. Just dehydrated.”

  “Well,” Sean says. “The thing is…I’m not a very good swimmer. If I fall off, or the raft flips over, I’m pretty much dead.”

  “I can’t swim at all,” Rosa says.

  “Me neither,” says the youngest hacker.

  “Well, big deal. We’d jump in and grab whoever falls off. I’ll grab you. I’m actually a really good swimmer,” Jonah says. His body grows hot and stiff, as if dipped in wax, as it always does when he talks about himself.

  Vespa turns toward the island. “Absolutely! We’d jump in and help anyone. No big deal.”

  Sean sits on the sand. For the first time, Jonah notices a scared look in his eyes. “I’m sorry, guys, but I’m not going.”

  “Sean.” Jonah offers him his hand. “You don’t need to know how to swim. Seriously. I have your back.”

  The cadet lets the hand hang over his head and says, “Look, I have a thing about water, okay? I’m not going. None of you guys can make me go, either. You’re not my commanding officer… And remember, we’re free now to do whatever we want, as morbid as that sounds. Right? And this is what I want. We haven’t even looked at the one other viable option, to go down the beach. So give me the cycle, and if one or two more people want to come with me, then we’ll check it out. Or, hell, I’ll just go by myself.”

  “Hey, man,” Malix says. “Just because we saw th—”

  “Shut up, Malix,” Sean snaps. The two of them share a look until Sean buries his face in his shoulder.

  “Hey. Whoa. What else happened this morning?” Jonah asks. “Something’s wrong with you two. There’s something you’re not telling us. No secrets. Not now. What’d you guys see?”

  “Just some zombie dogs,” Sean says.

  “Zombie dogs,” Malix repeats.

  “If you two are putting us in any more danger than we alre
ady are,” Vespa threatens, “I’m going to tether you both to the rafts by your wrists. What happened out there? What did you see? Cadets, now.”

  “You have to tell us,” Rosa whispers.

  Sean squints into the horizon. “We didn’t see anything but a hell of a lot of sand and a bunch of weird dogs that scared the absolute shit out of us. That’s it. I swear.”

  “I just want to hurry up and go.” Malix looks over his shoulder. “Let’s just go. Let’s get on the water.”

  Rosa’s chin quivers. “Please don’t lie to us.”

  The cadets don’t say another word. There’s a new, unspoken urgency within the group to move, amplified by Malix’s jumpiness.

  “We should go,” Michael says. “If there’s someone hunting us down, we should go.”

  “Yes,” Aussie agrees.

  “That’s it. We’re leaving right now.” Vespa stands over Sean. “And you’re coming with us.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Asshole. How would we even meet up again or know what’s going on with you?” Brooklyn asks. “We don’t have any ways to communicate.”

  Sean swings his rifle around to his chest. “If I’m in trouble, I’ll shoot this straight up in the air, two shots. Over and over in twos, and I’ll wait for you to answer me. If I find another way west, and if I think you should come to me, I’ll shoot in threes, and if I’m coming your way because I’ve come to a dead end, I’ll shoot in fours.”

  “I’ll go with him.” Everyone turns to see Ruth standing with her toes in the water. Sean cringes but doesn’t say a word.

  “Good,” Hopper mumbles. “Awesome. I’m totally on board with this plan.”

  “No,” Brooklyn says. “You guys, we’re not doing this. Pull your shit together and have some faith.”

  “Man, faith is for suckers.” Hopper laughs. “Faith is what the uneducated cling to.”

  Ruth responds by sitting next to Sean and hugging her knees.

  Vespa runs her hands through her black hair. “Fine. Do what you want. I’m not your mother. That it, then? Does anyone else want to go down the beach? I can’t afford to lose any more cadets, though, so don’t even think about it.”

  Everyone looks at Rosa, but she says, “I trust you guys if I fall in. But we should go soon because I don’t want to be out there when the sun sets.”

  “I agree,” Brooklyn says. There’s something off about her stare, Jonah notices. She looks like she might faint at any second, and he stands beside her, waiting to catch her in case she does.

  “You lose that cycle and you’re a dead man. I want it back,” Vespa says to Sean before looking back over the horizon.

  After a few minutes, the cycle leans in the soggy sand as Ruth climbs behind Sean. The kids say a round of goodbyes, and Jonah wonders how many more times this will happen. Sean’s right; everyone’s free to do whatever he or she wants. If a demic wants to stay right here, on this very spot and make sand castles for the rest of his or her life, then what can the rest of them do about it?

  Jonah approaches the cycle and waits for Ruth to look at him, but she just stares at the back of Sean’s head. “Take care, Ruth.” He then offers his hand to Sean who takes it and pulls him in surprisingly close.

  “Run,” Sean whispers. “Keep running.”

  “I…am. I will,” Jonah says, stunned. “You should, too. You shouldn’t leave the group.”

  “I know. But there’s something I need to check first.”

  “What did you see this morning, Sean? Tell me. What do you need to check?”

  “My sanity, man. My sanity.”

  They share a serious, confusing moment of eye contact until Malix comes in for a long, awkward handshake.

  Sean waits until the rafts bob on the almost nonexistent waves before turning the cycle on. Everyone wades in with their packs and guns held high above their heads, and once they struggle to climb aboard and everyone settles in, Jonah waves to Sean. The cycle speeds down the beach, Sean’s right hand out, his two fingers making a peace symbol.

  “We’ll never see them again,” Brooklyn says over Jonah’s shoulder. Color has come back to her cheeks.

  Hopper clutches his backpack to his chest. “Screw ’em.”

  The oars are distributed to the strongest on each raft. Jonah rows with Brooklyn, Bidson, and Christina, and the other boat moves under the direction of Vespa, Portis, Malix, and Michael. Everyone falls into a rhythm, pushing west on the crystal blue sea. Below them, fat green objects—like giant gumdrops—pulse up and down and dance in circles around dark red boulders, emitting thick yellow clouds of goo from their tops. Vertical gray discs claw along the bottom in packs of a hundred or more, shark fins with feet, Jonah thinks, and they change direction like birds, sweeping over large sections of rocks in seconds. There are translucent rods here and there, reflecting the rising sun, diving to ram the backs of the gray discs, where they then split in two and disappear. The demics are fast to point out every new species, every color, the interesting way something moves. Jonah looks when he can, but he tries to keep his eyes on the brightening horizon. They’re moving slowly, but at least they’re moving. Everything can still be okay as long as they keep going west.

  Sitting cross-legged in the middle of Jonah’s raft, Hopper cups his mouth and yells, “You okay over there, Pissy? Good news! If the water gets on your pants, no one will know if you pissed them or not!”

  Michael steels his jaw and refuses to acknowledge the calls. Jonah hears Richter on the other raft cackle and whoop.

  “I said,” Hopper yells, “You can piss your pants if you want and—”

  Jonah bats his oar sideways, drenching Hopper’s back with a slow-moving swath of water. Brooklyn doubles over in laughter.

  “Dude!” Hopper cries. “Watch it! What the hell!”

  “You make fun of him again, and I swear I’m going to grab you by your hair and throw you in,” Jonah growls. Everyone is silent. The sentence feels warm and tingly coming out of his mouth, not because he threatened someone, but because it’s something Vespa would say.

  “You almost got the homing device wet, ya dipshit!” Hopper shouts.

  Jonah catches Brooklyn’s blue eyes. He can tell she wants Jonah to pounce, to teach this kid a lesson. But that’s not who he wants to become, not some hothead. He merely wants a bit of the illusion that he is.

  “I’m just going to say this once,” Jonah finally says. “You call Michael names again, if I hear you make fun of him just one more time, I’ll break your damn teeth.”

  “And I’ll hold you down when he does it,” Brooklyn adds.

  Hopper rolls his eyes and hugs his pack closer to his chest.

  “And tell your two punk friends that I said that,” Jonah says loud enough for the other hackers to hear, his skin cooling from the ocean air.

  “I’ll make it a priority, Captain Dipshit,” Hopper mumbles.

  The rafts stay close together, bobbing and pushing, and once they are a few hundred yards from the shore and can no longer see the sea floor, the rowers take a five-minute break to pass around a water jug. The sun is hot on their shoulders, and the demics complain to each other about not thinking of building a shelter on board.

  “Whoa!” Aussie yells, pointing at the water in front of her raft. She twists and follows something that heads in the other direction, “Holeeeeee… Anyone else see that? Wow!”

  “See what, Red?” Hopper calls.

  “That black thing? It was like ten feet long!”

  The kids all look overboard. Within seconds, Jonah spots one. It’s black, gray, and longer than the raft. It has stubby arms and legs, and he counts two or three dorsal fins running down its back. At the end of its tail is another pair of feet, totally different from the others, plate-like and webbed, with long white claws. And then the creature is out of sight, heading toward the beach. Jonah bobs up and down, mesmerized, smiling but scared, hoping it’s friendly.

  In a few more seconds, everyone’s spotting o
ne or two, and then a herd swims underneath, body-to-body, racing to get somewhere first. The water churns with greasy foam all around them. The rafts rock up and down; the crossbeams are scraped and thumped. Jonah and the others work hard to keep themselves from tipping over, following orders from Michael and Aussie on where to move to maintain balance.

  “Look!” Christina yells, pointing at the shore.

  The creatures launch themselves at the beach, arching high in the air before flopping onto the sand. The kids can hear their soft bellies pound against the surface, one after another, until more than a thousand gather all along the shoreline. After a short congregation, the animals scurry up the beach, disappearing into the jungle.

  So that’s what all those lines on the beach were, Jonah thinks. “We should start naming things.”

  Brian laughs. “Um… Hoppers, maybe? Seems appropriate.”

  “I like.” The hacker laughs. “We’re distant relatives, obviously.”

  A large thump on the crossbeams sends Brian gently rolling into Jonah’s legs. “My apologies,” he says, sighing. Jonah helps shove him back to the middle, worried about how aggressive the creatures are becoming. That was the biggest bump yet. He dunks his oar back in the water just as two of the creatures breach the surface like rockets, arching thirty feet or more until they land on their long sides with a huge splash. They look like dinosaurs.

  “Freaky.” Hopper laughs.

  “So cool!” Richter calls.

  Vespa says, “Just watch out!”

  Jonah finds himself actually enjoying the show, but as more and more breach the water and some fight under the surface, he senses a roiling panic. Not only in the other kids and himself, but also in the hoppers. Up and down the coast now, the creatures leap high out of the water, flopping and splashing. That’s enough, Jonah thinks, and he whips his head at the island in the distance. His heart sinks when he sees how far away it still is. One of the creatures lands just a few feet away from Jonah’s corner of the raft, covering him with water, knocking him toward the middle.

  “I think something’s going on!” he yells.